More Hits Than You Think: Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers

Of every act that has ever had a UK Top 40 hit, just under half of them have never had another Top 40 hit. Around two thirds of them have never had more than 2 Top 40 hits. Despite this there are still a number of acts who have had more than 2 hits whilst only being remembered for 1 or maybe 2 songs. Therefore I thought I'd start a series of posts looking at acts who've had more hits than most people would think.

The subject of this first post is Jive Bunny & the Mastermixers. For the casual listener it's probably quite difficult to say how many hits they're remembered for but few would guess they had 8. Essentially it was a cartoon rabbit who would do medleys of old songs and was big in the second half of 1989.

Those who know their chart stats will know that they were the fourth act in chart history to reach number one with their first three Top 40 hits. The first was "Swing the Mood" which is most likely their best known. Then came "That's What I Like" which I'd say is quite well known, but because of the medley nature of their tunes some may think it's part of "Swing the Mood". Their final number one was a Christmas medley called "Let's Party" which was there for one week at the end of 1989 before getting knocked off by Band Aid II. Given you never hear it at Christmas time I'd say not too many people remember it.

Surprisingly though the hits kept coming until 1991. The next of these was That Sounds Good to Me which made number 4. It begins and ends with "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" by the Blues Brothers which itself hit the Top 40 the following month in the same week this left the Top 40.

The came their final Top 10 hit Can Can You Party which made number 8. It begins and ends with the "Can-Can" and features "Greased Lightning" which itself was part of another medley, "Grease Megamix" later on in the year.

Next up was Let's Swing Again which made number 19 in November 1990. It had only been out the Top 40 for a couple of weeks when the next hit The Crazy Party Mixes hit the Top 40. This made number 13 but judging by the 554 views on YouTube it's doesn't look like too many people remember, or want to remember it. This has to be the weirdest one of their hits.

Their final hit was Over to You John (Here We Go Again) which climbed to number 28 in its 3rd week in April 1991 before dropping out the Top 40 two weeks later. This was apparently a charity single to raise money for St Johns Ambulance.

As I've already mentioned, the nature of their tunes makes it difficult to know what I remember and what I don't. I certainly don't remember them still being around in 1991 though.